[NIS_GS:] UPDATE: Geographies and Genders (11/30/05; Southern ACIS, 2/23/06-2/25/06)
DEADLINE EXTENDED: Deadline for CFP extended to November 30, 2005
Updated Schedule for Plenary Speakers:

Eavan Boland (Thursday February 23, 2006 5:30 p.m.)
Margot Backus (Friday February 24, 2006 4:30 p.m.)
Vona Groarke (TBA)
Conor O'Callaghan (TBA)
CALL FOR PAPERS
IRISH STUDIES: GEOGRAPHIES AND GENDERS
American Conference for Irish Studies
2006 Southern Regional Conference
University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC
February 23-26, 2006

The University of South Carolina will host the 2006 Southern Regional Conference of the American Conference for Irish Studies in Columbia, SC, February 23-26, 2006. Some sessions will be held in conjunction with the USC Women's Studies conference on "Transnational Feminisms."

The organizers welcome proposals by November 15, 2005 for papers and panels that explore any dimension of Irish Studies (multi-genre, multi-disciplinary, and multi-media presentations encouraged), but particularly on topics addressing the conference theme "Geographies and Genders." How does geography inform our perceptions of Irish identity in politics, literature, and popular culture? How does gender inform our perceptions of Irish identity in politics, literature, and popular culture? How do geography and gender intersect in Irish culture and history?

Possible topics may include:
a.. geographical and/or gendered representations of identity and nation
b.. borders, separation, border crossings: north/south, rural/urban, Protestant/Catholic, public private, modernity/post-modernity, male/female
c.. maps, cartography, topography, borders, surveys, passports, rites of passage
d.. portrayals of gender in popular culture, media, and/or literature; Ireland as mother or lover, land as female; Acts of Union and acts of union, marriage, divorce; partition and parturition, reproduction, laws
governing sexual expression or reproduction
e.. geographies of gender and sexual identity, gender and space; hedge schools, laundries, camps, train stations, cottages, confessionals, bogs, wells, noises from the woodshed
f.. geographies of cultural and identity, diasporas, immigration, emigration, Gaeltachts; landscapes of famine, memorials, graveyards, memory and social space Additional details can be found on the conference website:
http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/irish

Please send queries and abstracts (no more than 250 words) including name, title, institutional affiliation, and any AV needs by email to:
emadden@sc.edu or=20
leemj@mailbox.sc.edu.

Hard copies may be mailed to:
Ed Madden
Department of English
University of South Carolina
Columbia SC 29208
(803) 777-2171=20
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